HMIP

Even if Kerr knew about the approach, it doesn’t justify McCalk leaking it to the Press. Worth remembering as well that when McCall left, it wasn’t announced by either club - first confirmation came from a leak to guess who, the “Voice of Reason”.

Keeping him out of the bookies is the real trick.

Someone leaked it, and it doesn’t make sense that it would be Ayr. As others have mentioned, McCall leaked stuff to the local paper before and seems to have some kind of relationship with the guy who posts on Twitter as Voice off Reason (Stuart Wilson I presume). I appreciate there may be no evidence, but i have little doubt that it was McCall.

Really don’t have a problem with a player taking better money elsewhere, but this has been terribly handled. Don’t know if the blame lies with the player, his agent or the clubs. This could easily have been kept confidential until the end of the season if the parties involved had so wanted. I really can’t see any reason why Ayr would have leaked this the press, so the finger points squarely at McCall. It may well be a vindictive thing on his part because the Ayr fans haven’t been willing to stroke his ginormous ego since he walked out on us, but I still think it’s more likely a cheap tactic to try and force through a deal in January. Really tough one for Ayr - allowing ourselves to be pushed around like that sets a dangerous precedent, but on the other hand I don’t think the player’s position is tenable.

Posts that won’t age well....!

Can you not approach a player to sign a PCA if the player is in the last 6 months of a deal?

Sad thing is you’re probably right about Doc, but I think the attitude towards him will be corrosive to say the least.

Let’s not go daft. I’m sorry to see Docherty go and the way Partick have handled it is piss-poor (for the player, if nothing else), but he’s not that great a player and is very injury prone to boot. Gives us and the player a real headache in the short term though which I do think the club might seek to address with Partick.

Situation with Smith was very different. The season was basically over when it was announced and Smith was never expected to re-sign anyway. If you look at the grief directed at Doolan for no good reason other than because he is McCall’s pal (which he may be unaware of given his rare outings) you have to think Doc is going to get pelters from the support. The only issue we’ve got is if we set the precedent and let him go in January, what do we do if others sign pre-contracts with Partick? Personally I think Forrest and Harvie can do better than another championship side, but I thought that about Shankland.!

It’s in the Daily Record. I’ve no doubt the story has come from Partick. My guess is Ayr have felt obliged to comment given that he is our club captain. As I said earlier, my gut feeling is that Partick are trying to force the move through now as Docherty is now in an impossible situation with the Ayr fans.

Murdoch has an injury that a lot of players at that level never really recover from - Michael McGowan and Dean Keenan are 2 from our own recent past that come to mind and Partick fans seem to think that Bannigan hasn’t been the same since his ACL injury. On the best analysis, I don’t see Murdoch being back until next Autumn, so would honestly be surprised if clubs at our level will be rushing in with pre-contracts.

My guess is Partick have announced this now to try and force the move through in January if they cough up a fairly nominal fee. The players position is basically unsustainable now and both Ayr and Partick will know that. I can’t really blame the player for taking the extra money, but it will upset a few given the way we’ve stood by him through long term injury. Really don’t have much to say about McCall - yes he’s a hypocrite given his complaints last season about Liam Smith, but in the end we need to focus on building our own club and focus on yesterdays positive news.

Agreed. A new main stand and maybe cantilever style roofs for the terracing would be just peachy! The thought of a lonely, windswept Lego brick stand out at Heathfield depresses the hell out of me.

Funnily enough, I’m not sure there is any great pressure anymore to bin Somerset. We’ll end up with a one sided stadium anyway.

Anyone know much about him? Doesn’t sound like he’s actually buying Cameron out.

Don’t think anyone was suggesting that, though it may suit all parties if Doolan goes back to Partick as a coach. I was more referring to the idea that we should cash in on players like Harvie before their contract expires. I just don’t think it’s as easy as that with the Shankland situation showing how hard it is for a club like Ayr to get decent money for players approaching the end of contracts. I’ve heard a few people saying we should have cashed in on Shankland last January - turns out there were no actual offers to cash in on. Looking back, I honestly can’t think of too many 6 figure transfers for Ayr players. Teale, Hurst and Nicol come to mind, but not many others. I remember us getting decent money for John Sharples and Frank Rolling back in the 90s, but even then I don’t recall it being 100k+. The easy answer is multi-year deals, but we can’t force players to sign and we don’t necessarily have the ready cash to fund such deals anyway.

Cameron mentioned we never actually received any bids for Shankland last January. Says a lot about the market. Clubs are unlikely to offer us 6 figures for players they can get for free 5 months later.

It’s been built up too much.

Has to be Stevo coming back...

Forecast looks grim for tomorrow afternoon.

Because absolutely no one noticed any difference to our style when Stewart came in as first team coach. Makes you wonder why any teams have first team coaches at all.

Roscoe is a bombscare, but I’m far from convinced that Adams would displace Muirhead. And no, I didn’t expect us to sustain a challenge. But I do struggle to understand the lack of concern over the total collapse of form, confidence, shape, style and tactics since Kerr took over. At the very minimum, the club need to bring in an experienced first team coach as a matter of priority. I tend to defend Cameron, but as chairman he cannot allow things to continue as they are.

Adams was first choice in McCall’s head. He reckoned he was the best centre back in the league which was laughable. Adams is useful if you want him to go and have a 1-2-1 battle with a centre forward, but as a week in week out centre back, he was never more than mediocre. Cameron has admitted on more than one occasion that he’d never heard of McCall until he received 2 recommendations out of the blue and decided to go with them based on the reputations of the people involved. That’s what I mean by lucky guess. The evidence is that Cameron doesn’t really know much about Scottish football and tends to make poor appointments. Ann Budge seems to have the sane isssue. I’m afraid you don’t seem to want to engage with the evidence in front of our eyes that the same group of players who got us to 2nd in the league, even with a couple of injuries, are the same group of players who’ve barely mustered a shot at goal in recent games against Dundee, Queens, Dunfermline, Inverness and Arbroath.

If the Arbroath game could be viewed in isolation, your comments would have some merit. But It would be nonsense to do so. The players we have at our disposal are the same ones that we had a few weeks back and the drop off in performance individually and collectively is astonishing. I don’t see how you can acknowledge we were in brilliant form a few weeks back with the same group of players then ignore where we are right now. Murdoch is a huge blow, but Adams and Doolan are no more than back ups. Doolan in particular didn’t look fit for the glue factory, so to suddenly offer his absence as being in any way significant is ridiculous. The hard fact is that Cameron has a woeful record of managerial appointments. Reid did a decent job and McCall was a lucky guess, but Shanks, Watt and Roberts we’re unqualified disasters. The parallels with Roberts are blatantly obvious and I find it hard to believe that Cameron has once again teamed up a rookie manager with an assistant who has zero experience of managing or coaching professional players.

Kerr has exactly the same team that ran over the top of Arbroath, Alloa and Partick 6-8 weeks back. Even the win at Morton, though scrappy, showed a team with s bit of heart and desire. If anything, we are now stronger with the return of Bell. The injuries excuse has well and truly run its course. Clear to anyone that has watched us lately that the players have not responded to the new management team. Either they don’t understand what Kerr wants or they do and aren’t buying into it. Anyone who thinks we aren’t in a relegation scrap now is s mug. We can only hope the positive start to the season is enough to keep our heads above water. I actually feel a bit sorry for Kerr (for now) as he seems like a decent guy but was chucked in as the cheapest of cheap options and wasn’t even given an experienced back room team but rather some laptop manager who is probably only good for re-arranging the stationery cupboard. Watching his post match interview was painful - it took Mark Roberts 6 months to look that lost, not 6 weeks.